Further Reading

Sprint is attempting to buy T-Mobile but hasn't reached an agreement yet. Even if it does, it could face opposition from a Federal Communications Commission that blocked AT&T's bid to purchase T-Mobile in 2011.

"We'd like to make a deal, but there are steps and details that we have to work out," SoftBank founder and CEO Masayoshi Son said on the Charlie Rose show this week. Rose suggested to Son that FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler might not want Sprint to buy T-Mobile because it would reduce wireless competition, but Son said that Sprint and T-Mobile today are "two little ones who are not able to fight without enough scale."

Masayoshi Son on buying T-Mobile.

A combined Sprint/T-Mobile would turn the market into a "three heavyweight fight," Son said. "I would like to have the real fight, not a pseudo fight, the real fight," he said. "If I can have a real fight, I go in [with a] more massive price war."

Rose followed up by asking, "That's your pattern? You undersell everybody, you're willing to postpone profits in order to gain market share?"

"Exactly. I want to be #1," Son responded. "If we were #3, and if we had enough chance, I want to be #1."

The Wall Street Journal pointed out on Sunday that T-Mobile's aggressive moves haven't lowered bill prices across the industry. "Competition in the US wireless market has increased over the past year, but so have Americans' overall phone bills," the newspaper wrote. "While carriers have trimmed the price of their plans here and there in recent months, billings per user continue to grow amid a shift to smartphones and a surge in wireless Internet use. The results call into question the notion of a price war in the US market. Rather than aggressively compete outright on price, carriers are tailoring their moves to accomplish other goals as well, like weaning customers off expensive smartphone subsidies and encouraging them to use more data."

A recent survey found that Sprint customers' average bill price is $144 per month, second highest to Verizon Wireless's $148. Those numbers include both single users and family plan customers. T-Mobile's average price of $120 was lowest among the four major US carriers.

I'm not convinced that anyone buying T-Mobile is a good idea. T-Mobile has a bright future if it keeps going with the Uncarrier concept. If they could buy themselves out and go it alone I think they could do some great things.

I have a hard time believing anything the other companies are saying they would do if they bought T-Mobile. We have heard it all before. Say the right things now and later claim it is no longer possible. No thanks.

The WSJ article only looks at the 4th quarter. T-Mobile's disruption was just getting started at that time. Let's look at Q1 2014 before coming to a conclusion about whether bill prices are falling across the country.

The WSJ article only looks at the 4th quarter. T-Mobile's disruption was just getting started at that time. Let's look at Q1 2014 before coming to a conclusion about whether bill prices are falling across the country.

So whats not covered in the article is what a price war means. Sure you can cut costs here and there and thats fine, but is it cutting costs because your service is more limited (less data?). Or is the intention to send equivalent services at a lesser price.

Frankly I'd like to see wireless billing fixed. Want me (to continue) as a customer, do the following1) remove the vaguenes in your 'fees and administrative costs'2) stop making me do maths to figure out how much im paying (well the base plan is X, but if you want this service add Y, and in this plan you need to add in a phone subsidy charge now which is Z, but if you add a new line the base is Q with subsidy t) X__X3) Remove your 'data charge' and 'premium data charge'. Your billing me twice for data. Stop it. (Bonus bullet point unrelated to billing, you need better LTE coverage, STAT)

I've been grandfathered in on an older plan which has suited my needs fairly well, but the new plans that Sprint has rolled out don't seem to be catching on. The one year ugprade 'Next' plan got pulled fast and the "framily" plan isn't any more appealing (and it has a dumb name).

To me, the problem is coverage -- Verizon and AT&T have vastly more 4G LTE coverage than Sprint or T-Mobile, so even if the two companies combine they will still be behind on their 4G coverage and won't be able to compete even if their prices are lower.

"Give us greater economies of scale and we'll be able to reduce prices".Surely the obvious thing to do would be to NOT focus on Sprint historically or currently, as that's irrelevant, and focus on the new owners and their history and what they have done in other markets?

The WSJ article only looks at the 4th quarter. T-Mobile's disruption was just getting started at that time. Let's look at Q1 2014 before coming to a conclusion about whether bill prices are falling across the country.

Agreed. I am very interested in seeing how effective T-Mobile's new marketing plan is working out. I imagine if it is going to have any real impact on average bill price and/or subscriber numbers, that it won't start showing through until the first couple of quarters of this year.

I just switched a few weeks ago to T-Mobile from Verizon, and will be saving money, and that is with adding another data plan that I didn't have with Verizon (my wife finally caved and wanted a smartphone). Although, to be fair, I may not have made the switch if I didn't live in Philadelphia. T-Mobile's coverage is fairly comparable to Verizon's, and I know that is certainly not the case in a lot of cities.

... T-Mobile's coverage is fairly comparable to Verizon's, and I know that is certainly not the case in a lot of cities.

AFAIK, Tmo covers most CITIES well, it's the smaller towns, highways and especially rural areas that are left out in the cold. I keep wondering what happened to that mandatory sharing agreement with ATT, maybe it's helping, but I don't see the effects along I-95 in Florida. I just set my phone to ignore WCDMA and cruise with 2G signal the whole way now, no point in trying to maintain 3/4G.

I'm sure less competition will work wonders for lowering prices across the market...

I find it funny that he even presents that as a viable argument, meanwhile, a very similar consumer group directly to your north has the government repeatedly scrambling and trying to do everything it can (short of something smart like nationalizing infrastructure and allow MVNO competition) to get a 4th carrier for increased competition and lower rates.

Believe me a 3 party oligopoly can screw you just as hard as a duopoly or monopoly.

I hear words. This is the time for action. Why can there not be a "massive price war" with four competitors in the market? Hmm?

Because the two companies that need to get together are competitiors and to drive prices down they will likely need to collude and there are laws to prevent that activity. There is a substantial cost to defend against the collusion complaint even though the end result might ultimately be in the consumers best interests.

A price war implies that you're selling the same crap, but for a little bit less money. T-Mobile in the last year, on the other hand, has been more disruptive. Selling /better/ crap for less money. Kind of like the Southwest Airlines of carriers except, of course, a lot less profitable.

How about this: T-Mobile and Sprint merge, but put that crazy T-Mobile CEO in charge of the whole thing.

I'm not convinced that anyone buying T-Mobile is a good idea. T-Mobile has a bright future if it keeps going with the Uncarrier concept. If they could buy themselves out and go it alone I think they could do some great things.

I have a hard time believing anything the other companies are saying they would do if they bought T-Mobile. We have heard it all before. Say the right things now and later claim it is no longer possible. No thanks.

The problem is that T-Mobile hasn't made a profit in a while. It has stemmed its customer hemorrhage, and it has forced a price war. Yes, customers are paying more, but mainly because data plans are becoming more affordable.

Sprint buying T-Mobile is not a good idea. Sprint is a CDMA based network and T-Mobile is pure GSM. Sprint bought NexTel with its IDEN network and almost went bankrupt in the process. Plus, I can't see the FCC being won over with reducing the big carriers from 4 to 3 - especially that many of the smaller carriers use Sprint's network.

I can see Dish being allowed to buy T-Mobile and it benefiting both Dish and T-Mobile. Dish has a lot of spectrum they've been saving up, and have no way to offer a Triple play plan. T-Mobile's GSM network might allow Dish a way to offer home Internet access. Dish has no need to change the way T-Mobile is run, and the extra network bandwidth could benefit T-Mobile.

The simplest reason is that without market share, the larger companies will ignore you. You can't lower prices without a large customer base to back you up. (make up lower cost per user with more users) The bigger company ignores you, users ignore you and you fail. Or, as is often the case, the consumer equates lower price with lesser quality (coughWalmartcough) and ignore the price decrease. No new customers means you don't make up the margin and you lose.

"T-Mobile's average price of $120 was lowest among the four major US carriers."

*double-take* Wha?

My bill (off-contract smartphone, Canada) is ~$40 per month, with unlimited nationwide calling and roaming, unlimited text, 3GB data. And I thought we had it bad here!

Yeah, that's Canada, who wants to call there?

Remember that $120 is the AVERAGE price. T-Mobile is offering 2.5Gb of data, unlimited texting, unlimited phone, roaming, for $60 per month -- not quite $40, but it's not $120 either. Now, if you didn't bring your own device, T-Mobile will charge you for the phone over a 24 month period. That's another $25 per bill. You want unlimited data, it's another $10 per month. You have a family plan, and you can almost double the bill right there.

You can see how the AVERAGE is $120.

Of course, you can always find a lot of the smaller carriers who will charge much less. VirginMobile is about $30 per month (autopay). Unlimited text, only 300 minutes, but also unlimited data.

... T-Mobile's coverage is fairly comparable to Verizon's, and I know that is certainly not the case in a lot of cities.

AFAIK, Tmo covers most CITIES well, it's the smaller towns, highways and especially rural areas that are left out in the cold. I keep wondering what happened to that mandatory sharing agreement with ATT, maybe it's helping, but I don't see the effects along I-95 in Florida. I just set my phone to ignore WCDMA and cruise with 2G signal the whole way now, no point in trying to maintain 3/4G.

After the breakup (in late 2011), T-Mobile & AT&T signed a 7 year roaming agreement, that allows both parties to roam on each others network. (I believe both companies already have an agreement that allow each other to roam on their 2G (GSM/EDGE) networks

That being said, the roaming agreement isn't free, and so far, T-Mobile hasn't exercised their right to have 3G roaming on AT&T's network. (I don't think that AT&T is roaming on T-Mobile's network, either). It's possible that it's been "turned on" in a couple of areas, but it's certainly not available nationwide.

IMHO...it's one thing that T-Mobile could do to improve their service significantly. Allow customers to pay an extra $10/month (on a month by month basis) for "extended 3G roaming". That would allow someone like me to use T-Mobile when I'm in major cities (where I spend 95% of my time), but still have decent wireless speeds when I'm traveling outside of those cities.